Moderation is key!

19Jun

In order to get some resources for my blog posts each week, I subscribe to a simple “coffee” Google Alerts that send me news articles, blog posts, or websites that are centered around coffee. It gives me a good idea of what the media are saying about the subject, and I can determine what I find most interesting within the week’s worth of updates. This week, I found a few articles about the health risks of coffee. I would like to address them here because I think this type of coverage is missing one important point: moderation is key!

This first article asks, Coffee or Tea?, to which they conclude tea is a better all-around drink. Coffee has a greater chance of increasing the drinker’s cholesterol than tea, but uses the example of a person who drinks 5 cups a day. I am sure there are people that do drink 5 cups or more, but I highly doubt that represents any large population of coffee drinkers. This next article gives us 10 Reasons why coffee has negative sideaffects to our health. These include an increase in stress hormones, the high acid levels, risk of caffeine additions, and the fatty nature of the cream and sugar we add to it.

So what does this all mean?

The Internet is a popular forum to get health information about what we enjoy eating, so it is important to see what people are saying. These articles both make good points, but it does not have to be all bad. The idea that coffee can have negative health benefits may be agreed upon, but I would not consider that negative or detrimental press for the coffee industry. Why? These negative consequences are most apparent in excessive or frequent coffee consumption. My mom has always said she thinks everything in excess is dangerous, whether those are vitamins, extremes of opinions, pizza, sun exposure, or even coffee. I advise that it is important to get a well-rounded opinion of coffee (see health benefits below in one of our previous posts!). However, we all need to understand that coffee, like everything else, is perfectly okay in moderation.

Therefore, go out, grab a cup of Lowcountry Blend, and enjoy! You deserve a treat every once in a while, and today is that day!